Subscribe To

Tuesday, 9 May 2017

What IS fascism, really?

Google
have redefined the word fascism to suit their own interests to cover
anyone who is “right-wing”.

What
is “right wing” these days.

The
broader definition of fascism is where gvovernment is by/for the
corporations. This comes from the original fascist, Benito Mussolini.

The
definition below provides a pretty good indication that what we
already have, cetainly in the United States and Britain is fascism
and “democracy” is just a fig-leak for unbridled corporate power.

The
following already apply and no doubt will develop even further under
Donalad Trup, Theresa May, Emmanuael Macron and others:

Corporate
power protected

Labour
power suppressed

Obsession
wit national security (the US spends more than everyone else combined
on ‘defence” and have troops over most of the globe)

Disdain
for human rights (Obama went after and prosecuted more whistleblowers
than any president in US history)

Identification
of enemies as a unifying cause (look at the “Putin did it” meme)

Controlled
mass media (this is increasingly a theme)

Rampant
cronyism and corruption

Fraudulent
elections

Rampant
sexism (not in this case but the imposition of ‘identity politics’
falls into this category)

Osession
with crime and punishment

Religion
and government intertwined (in the liberal case we have a disdain
for religion)

I
have no doubt in the world that there are fascist elements to the
present US adminstration although Trump ran on a policy of ‘draining
the swamp’ and not interfering with endless wars.

Marine
le Pen is not xenophobic as painted – she just wants a return of
soverreignty to France (call it nationalism if you like). Unlike
Trump who goes on about ‘the Muslims’ le Pen is intelligent
enough to distinguish between ‘Muslims’ and Salafist Muslims Iie
the extremists and terrorists).

The
difficulty would come in distinguishing between the two.

Neoliberalism
is a species of fascism

by
Manuela Cadelli, President of the Magistrates’ Union of Belgium,
via Defend
Democracy

The
time for rhetorical reservations is over. Things have to be called by
their name to make it possible for a co-ordinated democratic reaction
to be initiated, above all in the public services.

Liberalism
was a doctrine derived from the philosophy of Enlightenment, at
once political and economic, which aimed at imposing on the state the
necessary distance for ensuring respect for liberties and the coming
of democratic emancipation. It was the motor for the arrival, and the
continuing progress, of Western мemocracies.

Neoliberalism
is a form of economism in our day that strikes at every moment at
every sector of our community. It is a form of extremism.

Fascism
may be defined as the subordination of every part of the State to a
totalitarian and nihilistic ideology.

I
argue that neoliberalism is a species of fascism because the economy
has brought under subjection not only the government of
democratic countries but also every aspect of our thought.

The
state is now at the disposal of the economy and of finance, which
treat it as a subordinate and lord over it to an extent that puts the
common good in jeopardy.

The
austerity that is demanded by the financial milieu has become a
supreme value, replacing politics. Saving money precludes pursuing
any other public objective. It is reaching the point where claims are
being made that the principle of budgetary orthodoxy should be
included in state constitutions. A mockery is being made of the
notion of public service.

The
nihilism that results from this makes possible the dismissal of
universalism and the most evident humanistic values: solidarity,
fraternity, integration and respect for all and for differences.

There
is no place any more even for classical economic theory: work was
formerly an element in demand, and to that extent there was respect
for workers; international finance has made of it a mere adjustment
variable.

Every
totalitarianism starts as distortion of language, as in the novel by
George Orwell. Neoliberalism has its Newspeak and strategies of
communication that enable it to deform reality. In this spirit,
every budgetary cut is represented as an instance of modernization of
the sectors concerned. If some of the most deprived are no longer
reimbursed for medical expenses and so stop visiting the dentist,
this is modernization of social security in action!

Abstraction
predominates in public discussion so as to occlude the implications
for human beings.

Thus,
in relation to migrants, it is imperative that the need for hosting
them does not lead to public appeals that our finances could not
accommodate. Is it In the same way that other individuals

qualify for
assistance out of considerations of national solidarity?

THE
CULT OF EVALUATION

Social
Darwinism predominates, assigning the most stringent performance
requirements to everyone and everything: to be weak is to fail. The
foundations of our culture are overturned: every humanist premise is
disqualified or demonetized because neoliberalism has the monopoly of
rationality and realism. Margaret Thatcher said it in 1985:

There
is no alternative.”

Everything
else is utopianism, unreason and regression. The virtue of debate and
conflicting perspectives are discredited because history is ruled by
necessity.

This
subculture harbours an existential threat of its own: shortcomings of
performance condemn one to disappearance while at the same time
everyone is charged with inefficiency and obliged to justify
everything. Trust is broken. Evaluation reigns, and with it the
bureaucracy which imposes definition and research of a plethora of
targets, and indicators with which one must comply. Creativity and
the critical spirit are stifled by management. And everyone is
beating his breast about the wastage and inertia of which he is
guilty.

THE
NEGLECT OF JUSTICE

The
neoliberal ideology generates a normativity that competes with the
laws of parliament. The democratic power of law is compromised. Given
that they represent a concrete embodiment of liberty and
emancipation, and given the potential to prevent abuse that they
impose, laws and procedures have begun to look like obstacles.

The
power of the judiciary, which has the ability to oppose the will of
the ruling circles, must also be checkmated. The Belgian
judicial system is in any case underfunded. In 2015 it came last in a
European ranking that included all states located between the
Atlantic and the Urals. In two years the government has managed to
take away the independence given to it under the Constitution so that
it can play the counterbalancing role citizens expect of it. The aim
of this undertaking is clearly that there should no longer be justice
in Belgium.

A
CASTE ABOVE THE MANY

But
the dominant class doesn’t prescribe for itself the same medicine
it wants to see ordinary citizens taking: well-ordered
austerity begins with others. The economist Thomas Piketty has
perfectly described this in his study of inequality and capitalism in
the twenty-first century (French edition, Seuil, 2013).

In
spite of the crisis of 2008 and the hand-wringing that followed,
nothing was done to police the financial community and submit them to
the requirements of the common good. Who paid? Ordinary people, you
and me.

And
while the Belgian State consented to 7 billion-euro ten-year tax
breaks for multinationals, ordinary litigants have seen surcharges
imposed on access to justice (increased court fees, 21% taxation on
legal fees). From now on, to obtain redress the victims of injustice
are going to have to be rich.

All
this in a state where the number of public representatives breaks all
international records. In this particular area, no evaluation and no
costs studies are reporting profit. One example: thirty years
after the introduction of the federal system, the provincial
institutions survive. Nobody can say what purpose they serve.
Streamlining and the managerial ideology have conveniently stopped at
the gates of the political world.

THE
SECURITY IDEAL

Terrorism,
this other nihilism that exposes our weakness in affirming our
values, is likely to aggravate the process by soon making it possible
for all violations of our liberties, all violations of our rights, to
circumvent the powerless qualified judges, further reducing social
protection for the poor, who will be sacrificed to “the security
ideal”.

SALVATION
IN COMMITMENT

These
developments certainly threaten the foundations of our democracy, but
do they condemn us to discouragement and despair

Certainly
not. 500 years ago, at the height of the defeats that brought down
most Italian states with the imposition of foreign occupation for
more than three centuries, Niccolo Machiavelli urged virtuous men to
defy fate and stand up against the adversity of the times, to prefer
action and daring to caution. The more tragic the situation, the more
it necessitates action and the refusal to “give up” (The Prince,
Chapters XXV and XXVI).

This
is a teaching that is clearly required today. The determination of
citizens attached to the radical of democratic values is an
invaluable resource which has not yet revealed, at least in Belgium,
its driving potential and power to change what is presented as
inevitable. Through social networking and the power of the written
word, everyone can now become involved, particularly when it comes to
public services, universities, the student world, the judiciary and
the Bar, in bringing the common good and social justice into the
heart of public debate and the administration of the state and the
community.

Neoliberalism
is a species of fascism. It must be fought and humanism fully
restored.

Published
in the Belgian daily Le
Soir,
March 3, 2016, translated from French by Wayne Hall